Are the Anaheim Ducks almost good enough? Not to contend, but to be in most games they play. Their last ten games, they’re 6-3-1, which is a .650 points pace. In other words, they get two-thirds of the points they contend for. Do this all year, and you’d have over one hundred standings points, far and away enough to make the playoffs. Funny thing that the much higher situated (as far as the current standings go) Vegas Golden Knights came into Honda Center with the same 6-3-1 record in their last ten games. The two teams faced each other Wednesday night.

And the Ducks hung with the Golden Knights for about the first ten minutes. The shots were slightly in favor of Anaheim at midway of the first period. The first ended 12-7 in shots, in Anaheim’s favor. But this is a game of oddities, and so it was that three times, the Ducks passed up shots in the slot to feed pucks down low to a player on the right goal line. Why? Did they practice this? Talk about it? Why the need to try it, especially at the expense of pucks in high-danger areas of the Vegas defensive zone?

The lone goal in period one came from the very standard play of putting the puck in on net via a wrister and seeing what happens. In this case, it was Vegas who watched as the puck hit William Karlsson’s skate on the way to the net. The puck went up and hit Gibson in the chest. He couldn’t control it. It dropped. That same Karlsson reached out and put it up and in.

Period two would eventually end with Vegas up in shots, 23-14, and up in goals, 2-1. That meant the teams each scored one. But that wasn’t nearly all the excitement. Early on, Trevor Zegras planted a foot and got tangled up with a Vegas player, then went down. It appeared to be a skate malfunction, but he got up and went down again, hurt. He was helped off the ice, and it was announced “lower body” and “will not return.” Coach Cronin had no further information to offer after the game. If he’s hurt and out, Anaheim loses a spark, a point cited by Cam Fowler after the game.

Then there was the save of the year candidate. This came off a two-on-one opportunity, and the initial save was a spread-eagled reach flying from right to left. The puck hit Gibson’s arm rather than going into the wide-open side of the net.

But that was spoiled when Vegas player Shae Theodore put in the rebound. Too bad, and yet another reason for Gibson to be saying to himself, “I’m wasted on this club.” Maybe the difficulty in putting on a polite face in the face of losses where you literally flew across the crease time after time is why he never talks in post-game media scrums.

When Gibson was out with the aftermath of an emergency appendectomy, the answer to the question about whether the team had a reasonable chance to win on a given night would have been, “Yes, if Lukas Dostal keeps doing what he’s doing.” Now it’s back to “Yes, if John Gibson keeps, etc. etc.” On this night, he was doing it, again, and keeping the Ducks close.

The Ducks scored at the end of a power play on a floating wrister in from the point with Mason McTavish standing in front of the net.

So to period three, where early on, Vegas had—what else?—a two-on-one. This time, Gibson again went left to right, but this time overcommitting and getting wide of his net, leaving it open for Alexander Holtz to score into. 3-1 and an empty netter would follow. So would another Gibson spread-eagle, the seeming theme of the night. Coach Cronin said as much after: “We gave them 120-foot two-on-ones on poor decisions at the offensive blue line. They’re one of the highest performing teams in the league as far as executing shots with goals. You can’t give them those chances.” But when you do, you make for some spectacular plays in your own net. They just don’t always end up keeping the puck out of said net.

The Ducks put on a bit of a push in the last ten minutes but had no chance. Vegas won, 4-1. Third-period shots were six for Anaheim, 10 for Vegas, for totals of 20 and 33.

Cam Fowler, in his first game in a month, said of Las Vegas, “They’re a really disciplined group in what they do … a veteran group that doesn’t make any mistakes, so I at was hard for us to get on the extended O-zone time.” He added, “They capitalized on a couple of our mistakes, and that’s the difference in the game.”